Local and wide area networks are used as a mechanism for making available computer networked resources, such as file servers, scanners, and printers, to a multitude of computer users. It is often desirable with such networks to provide user access to the network resources, however dynamic and configurable access of network resources can be problematic and time consuming for network resource setup and initialization by those users wanting to simply quickly submit a job (e.g. print job) to a user selected network resource (e.g. printer). The desired ease of network resource selection and usage by today's mobile device users intensifies the need to have a streamlined network resource selection and usage procedure, preferably one that can accommodate dynamic network resource selection based on user selection criteria.
In terms of a “standard” Enterprise, in most cases a device user must know what network, discovery service or server the network (e.g. print) service is located on to connect to and use it. This can often involve multiple steps including the user manually entering server information, or network connectivity information before it can look for and/or connect to the desired service. In other cases, software of the user device must first scan to identify its “local network(s)” and then scan each one of these networks to find a service or server that meets some of the criteria needed to find the desired network (e.g. print) service. In some cases even after finding the server that meets the criteria matching the desired network service, the software of the user device must still scan the server to determine if it is capable of responding to a particular type of request. For example, in current network service systems, users may implement a scan of all available networks. Then the software will scan the network for advertising services like SMB or Apple's Bonjour to locate services that may be print servers, file servers or other network resources. Then the software must perform a port scan or ping a common network port to see if the server will respond. Only then will it be able to ask if a printer or other resource is available. This discovery and subsequent usage of a network resource via the network service in administration of the network resource can be time consuming and problematic for mobile devices in particular, when requiring multiple network queries in view of network connectivity and bandwidth/usage issues that can impair or otherwise restrict efficient usage/access of the network service by the mobile device.
Further, networks are used as a mechanism for making available computer resources, such as file servers, scanners, and printers, to a multitude of computer users. It can be desirable with such networks to restrict user access to the computer resources in order to manage data traffic over the network and to prevent unauthorized use of the resources. Typically, resource access is restricted by defining access control lists for each network resource. However, as the control lists can only be defined by the network administrator, it is often difficult to manage data traffic at the resource level.
Wide area networks, such as the Internet, have evolved as a mechanism for providing distributed computer resources without regard to physical geography. Recently, the Internet Print Protocol (“IPP”) has emerged as a mechanism to control access to printing resources over the Internet. However, IPP is replete with deficiencies. For example, the ability to restrict access to firewall protected network resources is compromised when firewall access ports remain open for extended periods of time, i.e. are open and waiting for network traffic to access them. For example, access to IPP printers cannot be obtained without the resource administrator locating the resource outside the enterprise firewall, or without opening an access port through the enterprise firewall. Whereas the latter solution provides the resource administrator with the limited ability to restrict resource access, the necessity of keeping open an access port in the enterprise firewall exposes the enterprise network to the possibility of security breaches.
Further, there exists disadvantages in current network resource data transfer over networks of differing trust/protection levels, in particular in the specialized control of network resource data separate from the act of communicating the network resource data itself.